December 6, 2009 Transcript

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December 6, 2009 Transcript

GUESTS:

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON Secretary of State

ROBERT GATES Secretary of Defense

MODERATOR/

HOST:

Mr. BOB SCHIEFFER

CBS News

This is a rush transcript provided for the information and convenience of the press. Accuracy is not guaranteed.

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TRANSCRIPT

SCHIEFFER: And joining us now in the studio Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. I believe this is the first time we've ever had two cabinet officers in the studio at the same time. So thank you both for coming. But let's get right to it. Tuesday night the president made it pretty clear he is dispatching another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan but for a limited time. Here is the way he put it.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: These additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July 2011.

SCHIEFFER: But since he has said that, Mr. Secretary, you have said what the president has announced is the beginning of a process, not the end of a process. You have said this will be a gradual process and based on conditions on the ground, so there is no deadline for the withdrawal of American forces in Afghanistan. So what's going on?

GATES: Well I think what the president has done here is balanced and signaling our commitment and, now thanks to Secretary Clinton's and others' good work, NATO's commitment to reenergize our efforts and reverse the momentum.

SCHIEFFER: But Mr. Secretary, is there a deadline or is there not?

GATES: There isn't a deadline. What we have is a specific date on which we will begin transferring responsibility for security district by district, province by province in Afghanistan to the Afghans. The process of that and the subsequent thinning of our forces will take place over a period of time and will happen and will be done based on conditions on the ground. And the decision on that will be made by our commanders in the field.

SCHIEFFER: But does that mean, Madame Secretary, that American forces will still be there as we start... That they're not going to start bringing the troops home? That we'll just begin handing over responsibility?

CLINTON: No, it means that as we assess the conditions on the ground we will be transferring responsibility to the Afghans. And depending on the assessment at the time, that means some of our troops can begin coming home. I think that...

[crosstalk]

SCHIEFFER: Can begin coming home?

CLINTON: Absolutely, can begin coming home.

SCHIEFFER: But not will begin coming home?

CLINTON: Well, you know Bob, I really believe that the president was very clear in his speech. He said that we want to evidence both resolve and urgency at the same time. You know, this is a very big commitment. The president engaged in a deliberative process that led to this decision. And he is resolved to what he can with these new troops to break the momentum of Taliban, to begin taking back territory, to stand up the Afghan security forces in an effective way

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on a faster timetable. And that we believe, based on everything that is going on, that marines that are in southern Helmand province got there in July of this year, they will have been there for two years, as Secretary Gates can tell you they're making progress. So it's not an arbitrary time. It is an assessment based on what we see happening that yes, we will be able to transfer responsibility and that will very likely mean some troops can come home.

SCHIEFFER: But in other words, there's not a deadline. Is that what you're saying? That we'll look at what's going on on the ground and then we'll decide where to go from there?

GATES: Let's be clear that the date in, of July 2011 to begin transferring security responsibility and thinning our troops and bringing them home is firm. What is conditions based is the pacing at which our troops will come home and the pace at which we will turn over responsibility to the Afghans. And that will be based on conditions on the ground.

SCHIEFFER: So we get to the month, the magic month and he might decide to bring six troops home or something like that and that would mean... that's what he's talking about.

[crosstalk]

GATES: Or 6,000.

SCHIEFFER: But it might be six.

[crosstalk]

CLINTON: Well you know Bob, I think it's very hard for us to be armchair generals.

SCHIEFFER: Well, precisely.

CLINTON: What we've done and what the president's direction to the commanders on the ground is very clearly: we want this to move. We want it to move quickly. We want to show urgency about our aims here. And we do expect to start this transition in July 2011. And I think everybody is very clear about that. All of the generals are. We certainly are. But it's hard to sit here today in Washington and predict exactly what that pace will be.

SCHIEFFER: Well that's why I wondered why he put out this deadline because...

[crosstalk]

GATES: I'll tell you why because...

[crosstalk]

SCHIEFFER: If there's one thing we know it's that you can't predict what's going to happen in a war.

GATES: The reason that we did, and I started to make this point earlier, is he was balancing a demonstration of resolve with also communicating a sense of urgency to the Afghan government that they must step up to plate in terms of recruiting their soldiers, training their soldiers and getting their soldiers into the field, first to partner with us and our ISAF partners and then on their own. So it's an effort to try and let the Afghans know that while we intend to have

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a relationship and support them for a long time, the nature of that relationship is going to begin to change in July of 2011. And as the security component comes down, the economic, development and the political relationship will become a bigger part of the relationship. We are not going to abandon Afghanistan like we did in 1989. But the nature of the relationship will change.

CLINTON: And that also, Bob, is in keeping with what President Karzai said at his inauguration. Because he said that he wanted to see Afghan troops taking responsibility for important parts of the country within three years and to have the total responsibility within five.

SCHIEFFER: Well let me just ask you this. What if there's total chaos in 18 months? What if the government has fallen in? Does that mean that we'll still begin this process? I mean what would we turn it over to?

GATES: I think the key here is, first of all, it's a clearly a hypothetical. If we thought that was going to be the case I think we would've perhaps come to a different set of conclusions and the president would've made different decisions. Our military commanders are confident that they will have clear understanding by that time of whether the strategy is working or not. And if it's not, then we obviously will have to reconsider the whole approach. But our commanders have the confidence and bought into this date as a realistic date in terms of when they will be able to make a judgment and begin this process of handing over security responsibility.

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this. Former Vice President Cheney says anytime you start talking about leaving, that just emboldens the enemy. It causes the Afghans to begin accommodate the enemy because they get the idea that the bad guys are still going to be there, but we're going to leave.

GATES: The reality is the Taliban read the newspapers. Okay. They know what popular opinion is in Europe. They know what popular opinion is in the United States. Whether you announce a date or not, they can tell as easily from reading the news media about political support for these kinds of undertakings themselves and they always believe that they can outlast us. The reality is tough, what are they going to do? Are they going to get more aggressive than they already are? We don't think they can. If they lie low, that great news for us because it gives us some huge opportunities in Afghanistan. We think that we have the opportunity to engage these guys with the additional force we're sending in, make a significant difference in 18 months, get enough additional Afghan troops and police trained that we can begin this gradual process of transitioning security.

SCHIEFFER: Madame Secretary, let me ask you about one thing the president said. In this entire speech he talked about handing over authority to the Afghans. But he never included the words `win' or `victory' as far as I know it in that speech. He just talked about avoiding an open ended commitment. Have we given up trying to win? Do we think that's no longer possible? Is victory no longer possible?

CLINTON: Well Bob, I think he talked about success and that's what we're looking toward.

We do believe we can be successful.

[crosstalk]

SCHIEFFER: Well what is success?

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CLINTON: Well success is doing what we have set forth as our primary goal, which is to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda. It is also being able to stand up an Afghan security force so that they can defend themselves and partnering with the Afghan government and people so that they will not once again become a safe haven for terrorists. And I think part of our very careful deliberation over the last months was to ask ourselves really hard questions. Like okay, who is the enemy? Is it every young boy who is coerced into joining the Taliban or who decides he can make more money being a fighting member of the Taliban than he can being a member of the Afghan security army? You know we thought hard about that. And no, we don't think so. We think those are people that actually if we reverse and break the momentum of the Taliban, which we think can very well happen with the strategy that we're pursing, that a lot of these people are going to come back over. They don't want to see the return of the Taliban. There's absolutely no evidence that Afghans are in any way supportive of that.

SCHIEFFER: Will there be a civilian surge as well as a military surge?

CLINTON: Yes, there will be. In fact there has been. We've tripled the number of civilians in Afghanistan. When this administration came into office there were about 320 civilians. They were on, most of them, on six month rotations. There was in my view not the kind of serious effort that needs to be demonstrated to the civilian aspect of our strategy and we've changed that. And we're going to keep building it.

SCHIEFFER: The president made it clear that we expect the Karzai government to improve its performance and clean up corruption. How will we know and what will we do if he doesn't.

GATES: Well, Secretary Clinton made this point pretty clearly in our hearings this week. The reality is the Karzai government has been painted with too broad a brush. The reality is we have several ministries ? Interior, Defense, Agriculture, Education and some others ? where we have very competent honest ministers that are doing a darn good job. We also have governors in important provinces that are making a big difference, that are honest and competent.

[crosstalk]

SCHIEFFER: But what if he appoints a crook to one of those province governors' jobs? Do we then cut off the aid to that province? What do we do?

[crosstalk]

CLINTON: Well you know Bob, we've said very clearly that our aid is going to be based on a certification of accountability and transparency. So there are certain ministries we will not, American money will not be going to. We've looked at every civilian assistance program and contract and we've said, `look, we're not going to just aid and abet bad behavior.' So we will be putting the money where, as Bob said, we think we've got people who are doing a good job. And they are. And so part of the challenge here is to begin to make the more difficult, complicated assessments that were not made before.

GATES: I'd just like to add one other point. And that is we, one of the refinements in this strategy is that we are not doing full scale nation building. What we are going to do is focus on the ministries that matter to our success and that contribute to the success of our strategy both with respect to Al Qaeda and stabilizing the security situation.

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